


5+1 Sick

by sickofit (inthegarden)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caretaking, Fever, M/M, Sickness, Swearing, Vomit, idiocy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:38:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthegarden/pseuds/sickofit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times John cares for Sherlock when he's sick, and one time Sherlock returns the favour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> See tags, please.

John really should have known. If not by the awkward curl of his flatmate’s body against the sofa (not his usual position, not at all), than by the fact that Sherlock was neither in his mind palace nor focussed on John. He seemed instead to be staring at an ever changing spot on the ceiling. John really should have known, being a doctor and having treated little else all week, and being an expert in all things Sherlock, but he didn’t. 

That was how he ended up cleaning vomit out of the carpet at 10pm on a Wednesday. 

John was no stranger to vomit or the cleaning of it, but that didn’t mean he was pleased with the circumstances.   “Christ, Sherlock. Could you not have said you needed something to be sick in?” John asked, doing his best to keep the irritation out of his voice and succeeding only slightly. “I’ve been home for half an hour. You had half an hour to say, John, I’m feeling ill, do you think you could fetch me a bin, please.” 

Sherlock muttered something indecipherable into the blanket John had tossed over him. 

“What was that?” John asked.

Sherlock tugged the blanket down enough to glare more efficiently. “I said, I didn’t think I was actually going to be sick. I thought I could control it, John!” 

John rolled his eyes. 

“I did.” Sherlock’s tone was more than a little defensive.

John repeated his eye rolling, this time followed by a frown.

Sherlock huffed. Which turned out to be a bad plan, as the motion unsettled his stomach and he had to spend a few moments once again staring intently at the ceiling.   John took pity on him. He finished his cleaning without comment and brought over a bin, freshly lined, and a glass of water. “Are you still feeling nauseous, then?” he asked, kneeling by the sofa and running a hand over Sherlock’s forehead. It was cool and a bit sweaty.  

"Yes.” Sherlock opened his mouth as little as possible to answer.

John’s expression shifted into something sympathetic and warm. “Oh, Sherlock. Is this the first time you’ve been sick today?”

A tense nod was all the response he recieved.

“Right. So, when did you start feeling ill?” 

A wave of one hand. 

“You’re not wanting to talk right now, I see. Okay. Bin is here,” John said, pointing at it firmly. “Now. You can just nod or shake your head. Have you felt ill for longer than an hour?” 

A nod.

“Longer than two?”

Consideration, and then a tiny shake of the head. 

“Right. So about two hours, then. Have you eaten anything today?”

A nod.

“Toast?”

A nod.

“Anything else? Anything unusual?”

A shake of the head.

“Experiments? Anything that could make you sick?”

Again, a shake of the head no.

“To drink, then. Only tea?”

A nod. A miserable, desperate nod.

“Okay. Well, given the circumstances, it’s most likely stomach flu, which means you’ll be feeling this way for a day or so.”

A shake of the head. 

“I’m sorry, Sherlock, but that’s the way it goes. Norovirus is, at least, very short lived. We’ll need to keep you hydrated and resting, but otherwise, you’ll just have to bear it.”

A shake of the head accompanied with a sniff.

John paused. Sherlock looked absolutely miserable, his eyes rimmed in red and his face a strangely colorless shade of pale. “It’s all right, Sherlock. It’s unpleasant, but it’ll be over soon and you’ll be fine, okay?”

Sherlock didn’t respond.

“Okay. I’m going to make you some tea. You stay here and use the bin if you need to, all right? I don’t want you getting up on your own and fainting. If you need to leave the sofa for any reason, you yell, okay? A concussion will not add anything good to this experience.”   He stared at Sherlock until he got what he assumed to be assent in the form of a sort of modified shrug during which Sherlock moved as little as possible. Good enough. 

John moved cheerfully around the kitchen, whistling to himself tunelessly as he made two cups of tea, Sherlock’s without milk but with extra sugar. Back in the sitting room, he set Sherlock’s down on the coffee table, and knelt at his side again. 

“Do you think you can drink a little? If tea doesn’t sound good, you can try the water?”

Sherlock swallowed in response. And then again. John knew what that meant. 

“All right,” John said. “Let’s get you sitting up, okay?” 

Unsurprisingly, Sherlock didn’t answer, but he did shift himself into sitting as John picked up the bin and installed it on Sherlock’s lap. John sat down beside him and pressed him forwards a bit until he was leaning over the bin. 

Sherlock made a small unhappy noise and John sighed, smoothing the flat of his palm down Sherlock’s back in long strokes. “It’s all right, Sherlock. You’ll feel better once it’s done, yeah?”

For his part, Sherlock was too busy swallowing to respond. 

As always, John was patient, but even he was beginning to wonder if it had been a false alarm by the time Sherlock finally gagged and retched unproductively into the bin. 

The shift of bone and muscle under John’s hand as he retched a second time was alarming; the man really was too thin. John would have to make sure he ate more often once he was recovered. The third retch resulted in vomit, which Sherlock fortunately managed to keep within the confines of the bin. After a pause he threw up again, and then a third time before he was reduced to dry heaves. 

John kept his hand on Sherlock’s back, smoothing down the length of his spine, until Sherlock spat and coughed and sat up to lean back against the sofa. John handed him his tea and he swished some around to rinse the taste from his mouth before spitting into the bin again. 

“Can I take that, now, do you think?” John asked, gesturing to the bin.

“Yes. Fine,” Sherlock said, his voice rough. 

By the time John came back with the bin, freshly lined, Sherlock had curled into a rumpled, scowling lump on the sofa. John set the bin down and smiled at him. “I’m sorry you’re ill, Sherlock. Do you want me to stay down here tonight?”

Sherlock didn’t respond, instead closing his eyes, and John assumed he was choosing to ignore everything about his present circumstance, John included. Not that he could blame him, really; he had to be feeling pretty miserable. John picked up a book and flopped down into his chair, intending to stay anyways, when he heard Sherlock say, barely audibly, “Yes, please.” John smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is an idiot, and John is extremely sweary.

The ledge that they were sitting on was four feet wide, and beyond it lay a sheer drop of thirty feet or so. It had no railing or lip. The only good thing about the ledge, in John’s opinion, was that it was perfectly flat. John tucked himself back against the building, bracing his feet on the shingles, one hand curled around the window frame that they had shimmied through two hours ago. 

“You owe me,” John hissed. “I fucking hate this. You’re doing the washing up for a month.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic, John. It’s perfectly safe. Of course I’m not doing the washing up.”

John squeezed his eyes closed and did not punch Sherlock, although that was largely due to his unwillingness to release the window frame or to move in a way that directed his body weight anywhere but mashed against the wall.

“Why did you need me here, exactly?”

“Gun, John. And...” Sherlock cut his eyes to the side, looking away from the window across the alley that they’d been watching for the first time that evening, “it’s dull to be on a stakeout alone.”

“It’s.... it’s dull, Sherlock? Dull? So I’m here because you wanted company?” John spluttered. “Fucking hell.” He took a deep breath and did not think about people falling off of buildings. Not at all. Especially not Sherlock. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and unbent, sticking his legs out in front of him. “You could at least attempt to improve your vocabulary, John, really. Your expletives are tediously repetitive.”

“Your being a fucking enormous twat is tediously repetitive,” John muttered.

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow and glanced at him, and then suddenly he was the sole focus of all of Sherlock’s attention.

“This isn’t a fear of heights,” Sherlock said, slowly.

“No, it’s not,” John said, avoiding Sherlock’s gaze. “It’s fine, Sherlock. Leave it.”

Sherlock’s lips curled in the way that meant ‘not a chance’, and he drummed his fingers against the shingles. “You’re sweating, but it’s not hot. Anxiety, clearly, as the tightness of your mouth and the line between your eyebrows corroborates. But not of the height... the building, then? The... oh.”

“Yes, oh, you absolute arse, now get back to watching the fucking window so we can go home.”

Sherlock was silent for a moment, but his eyes did not leave John’s face. “No,” he said, firmly. “We’re leaving now. The information can be attained via some other course.” He pushed himself up to standing and looked down at John and then.

And then he swayed. 

And John panicked, and lunged at him, and knocked him onto the rough shingles of the ledge, and mostly covered him with his own body. 

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. What the fuck was that?” John said, after several long moments of trying to breathe with his face pressed against the fabric of Sherlock’s coat between his shoulder blades. 

“You’re heavy, John.” Sherlock sounded bored. 

“Shut the fuck up, Sherlock. Be still and do not say anything.” John slowly eased himself up so he was on his knees straddling Sherlock’s thighs. He noted that they were lying parallel to the edge and about two feet back. Carefully, he shifted off Sherlock, away from the wall. “Sit up slowly and lean against the wall,” he said, and it was in no way a request. 

Sherlock twisted his head and glared at him, the side of his forehead grazed and bloody from his impact with the shingles. “Fine,” he said, crisply, doing as John asked. “Do you wish to tackle me again, or shall we leave?”

John gaped. “Sherlock. No. No, you... I saw you. You... you swayed. You were going to fall, I wasn’t, it wasn’t an overreaction...” He winced at the blood on Sherlock’s temple, shuffling forwards on his knees and reaching out a hand. He hadn’t misinterpreted, had he? He carefully took Sherlock’s jaw and tilted his head. “Just a bit of a graze,” he said, guilt suffusing every word. “I’m sorry.” 

Sherlock shrugged, and John realised he hadn’t released Sherlock’s chin. He did so immediately, running his hand through his own hair, and then frowned and returned his hand to Sherlock’s face. 

“You’re warm.”

Sherlock studied the window across from them intently. “Exertion.”

“Exertion? Bollocks. You’re... oh my god. You’re ill, aren’t you? You have a bloody fever. You...” John cut himself off abruptly and moved to slump against the wall. He stared at nothing for a while, chewing the side of his lower lip. 

When Sherlock took in a deep breath as if he was about to say something, John held up his hand. “Don’t. Do not. Do not even attempt to explain what just happened. You, on your knees, are going to crawl through that window while I hold on to your coat, and then I’m going to follow you, and then we are going home where you will stay in bed until I say you can leave. Are we clear, Sherlock?”

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply, but the expression on John’s face was something he preferred to remove as quickly as possible, so he shut his mouth and nodded.

“Good,” John said. “Good. In you go, then.” John gripped the lapel of Sherlock’s coat and tugged as they shifted towards the window. Sherlock made it through with uncharacteristic clumsiness and then stood, leaning against the wall until John followed. 

“Right,” John said, a bit of his military bearing returning. “Give me the slightest reason to and I will be carrying you to the cab.” He gestured at the door, and Sherlock left the room, somewhat less than steady, with John following close behind. 

***

“39.1” John said, clearly unimpressed. He shook two paracetamol into Sherlock’s hand and dropped the thermometer on the bedside table. Toeing off his shoes, he walked around the bed and lay on his back beside Sherlock. He crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. He could feel his flatmate and best friend and absolute pain in his arse shifting around restlessly. If it wasn’t Sherlock, he’d have said it was nerves. 

“John, I’m-”

“No.”

“But John, I’m-”

“I said no. I’m... angry. Livid, actually. And I don’t want to say something I’ll regret, so just... go to sleep. I’ll stay for a bit.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said, so quickly it was nearly one word, before rolling over on his other side and going weirdly still save a bit of shivering. John sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. Sherlock never apologised. Ever. He hadn’t even technically apologised for being dead for three years, although there had been a large amount of ‘I regret the repercussions of my actions’ and ‘I never intended you to be so affected’.

“Sherlock,” John said, and suddenly he was exhausted. “Listen to me. Don’t interrupt. Just lie there and let me say this.” He moved his arms and pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes, which somehow made it easier. 

“You’re... you’re important to me. Vitally so. And I understand that your work requires a certain amount of risk. I respect that. Enjoy it, sometimes. But this. This was... there was no real reason for you to be sat on a ledge with a bloody fever. It was pointless risk taking, and I can’t... I can’t. So no more. When you’re ill, you tell me, and you let me look after you. When you’re making decisions about things that are completely idiotic, like this evening, you let me have my say.” He drew in a long breath. “All right?”

Sherlock didn’t answer for long enough that John wondered if he was sleeping, although the tension in the line of his back made that improbable. “Sherlock?”

“I thought you were leaving,” he replied, immediately, his voice low and quiet.

“Oh. Right. I’ll get you some water and be back in a while to check on you, yeah?”

“No, John. I thought you were leaving me. This. I thought... I thought it was too much, finally.”

John raised his eyebrows, and pushed himself up on an elbow, trying to determine Sherlock’s expression from the bit of the side of his face he could see. 

“If I was going to leave, Sherlock, I think I would have already,” he said, calmly, evenly. “And if I ever do, we’ll talk about it first. But as far as I can figure, it won’t happen. Certainly not right now. Certainly not just because you’ve been an idiot.” He lowered one hand onto the top of Sherlock’s head, running his fingers through dark curls. “Just go to sleep. Relax. I’ll look after you.”

Sherlock didn’t respond, but John could hear his breathing deepening and see the sharp angle of his shoulder rounding a bit. He kept his hand moving through Sherlock’s hair, and if wasn’t something that flatmates did, well. He could think about that another day.


End file.
